Thursday, December 20, 2018

PULLMAN-BORN, TRI-CITIES RAISED JAMES MATTIS, RETIRING IN FEBRUARY 2019 AS U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE


James Mattis, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four star general who has served as U.S. Secretary of Defense since Jan. 20, 2017, will retire Feb. 28, 2019, according to a letter --dated Dec. 20, 2018 -- he wrote to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Mattis was born in 1950 in Pullman. He grew up in Richland in the Tri-Cities and graduated from high school in Richland in 1968.

--James Norman Mattis was born Sept. 8, 1950, at Finch Memorial Hospital on the Washington State College (WSC) campus in Pullman. His birth was mentioned in a story in the Sept. 15, 1950, issue of the Pullman Herald weekly newspaper.

In 1959 WSC became WSU, Washington State University. The hospital’s name eventually changed to Pullman Memorial Hospital. Now at an off-campus location, it’s called Pullman Regional Hospital.

--He is a 1968 graduate of Columbia High School, also known as Richland High School (or vice versa), in Richland, Wash., and a 1972 graduate of Central Washington State University (now Central Washington University) in Ellensburg, Wash. 

--His mother is Lucille Marie Proulx Mattis (she lives in Richland, Wash.) and his father was John West Mattis (died in 1988). Lucille was born in 1922 in Massey Station, Ontario, Canada. John, born in North Belle Vernon, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, went by his middle name, West.

--The 1950 WSU Fussers Guide shows “Mattis, J West” employed as “Fireman Utilities and Construction” at the college’s Power Plant. His mother may have also worked for WSC.

--A Dec. 2, 2016, story in the Tri-City Herald said Mattis was born in eastern Washington and grew up in Richland. “He was 16 when his family moved into one of Richland’s Alphabet Houses, not far from the Columbia River.” But, age 16 can’t be the correct age since Pullman’s Rex Davis, a retired WSU coach/professor, was James Mattis’ grade school PE teacher in Richland from 1955 to 1960, according to an Aug. 25, 2016, story from WSU News. Sept. 8, 1955, was James Mattis’s fifth birthday. So, it seems more likely the Mattis family moved to Richland when James was about five years old.

--A Seattle Times story (Jan. 7, 2017) says Mattis’ father moved the family “from Pullman to Richland in the early 1950s to take a job as a power-plant operator at Hanford after a career that had included sea duty as a merchant mariner during World War II. Mattis' mother, Lucille, was a war veteran, too, having served as an Army intelligence officer based in South Africa."

--Lucille’s sister, Rose Marie, married Harold Ames, who was from Chewelah. Both Rose and Harold were WSC graduates.